Hu Jintao, China’s president for the last decade, is the first leader of China since the Empress Dowager Cixi (who died in 1908) to refuse to speak with foreign press. Chiang Kai-Shek gave interviews, Mao Zedong pontificated to Edgar Snow; Deng Xiaoping joked with foreign reporters while expounding on his pragmatic philosophy. Even Hua Guofeng, Mao’s short-lived successor, chatted with a British journalist. China’s current premier Wen Jiabao has sat down with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria twice for a relatively gentle round of questioning but the top leader, and the other members of China’s ruling council the Politburo Standing Committee, have stayed silent.